EZEKIEL 37<\/b><\/p>\n
He asked me, \u201cSon of man, can these bones live?\u201d I said, \u201cO Sovereign Lord you alone know\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
(Ezekiel 37:3).<\/i><\/p>\n
Early in his ministry, Ezekiel was told to prophesy against the mountains of Israel. On these mountains the wicked people were offering sacrifices at \u201chigh places,\u201d shrines to various gods, including shrines sinfully erected to the Lord, which He had forbidden. God told the people through Ezekiel that he would slay those who worshiped at these altars and would scatter their bones around their shrines in the mountains. This would happen when God brought judgment upon the nation.<\/p>\n
After the destruction of Jerusalem, Ezekiel was taken by God in a vision to a valley full of bones. These were the bones of the idolators. representing the death of Israel as God\u2019s holy nation. God asked Ezekiel, \u201cSon of man, can these bones live?\u201d Well, maybe some bones might live, but these? These, the bones of the most wicked nation of all, the nation that knew God and then rejected Him? Can such bones as these live?<\/p>\n
If these bones can live, then any bones can live. Ezekiel expressed his hope that it might be so. \u201cYou know, O Lord,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ezekiel was told to prophesy to the bones. The prophetic message that originally \u201cslew\u201d the wicked nation would now be a means of her resurrection. As Ezekiel preached in this graveyard, he heard a rattling sound. Bone began to join with bone, and then sinew came upon the bones, and soon the valley was full of corpses.<\/p>\n
Then God told him to prophesy to the Breath, a reference to God\u2019s Spirit. \u201cCall on the Breath to enter these corpses,\u201d said God. So Ezekiel did so. and soon the corpses came to life again, standing as a holy army ready to do God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n
This picture of national resurrection draws from God\u2019s original creation of Adam, when God made Adam of dust and then breathed into him the breath of life. Resurrection, we are taught, is a new creation. This prophecy received its first fulfillment after the exile, when the Jews came back into the land and were reestablished as God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n
Though this passage focuses on national resurrection, the imagery also tells us that God will raise our mortal bodies. Our hope for eternity is in the resurrection of our total persons.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
Ezekiel 36\u201337<\/p>\n
1 Peter 2<\/p>\n
Surely we need a resurrection in our lands today. We need \u201cprophets\u201d who will pray and preach to the dry bones in the church and in society. All of us are called to be prophets. Ask God to show you how to carry forward in some sense Ezekiel\u2019s task in your own situation.<\/p>\n
For further study: 2 Chronicles 34\u201335 \u2022 Psalm 130:1\u20133 \u2022 Isaiah 26:19<\/i><\/p>\n
wednesday<\/p>\n
november<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EZEKIEL 37 He asked me, \u201cSon of man, can these bones live?\u201d I said, \u201cO Sovereign Lord you alone know\u201d (Ezekiel 37:3). Early in his ministry, Ezekiel was told to prophesy against the mountains of Israel. On these mountains the wicked people were offering sacrifices at \u201chigh places,\u201d shrines to various gods, including shrines sinfully … Continue reading “THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}